Boiler-cleaning tool.



M. O. LEWIS.

BOILER CLEANING TOOL.

APPLICATION FILED OCT. 4, 1911.

IIADDIQ GFTFPS 50. PHOTO-LITHCL. WASHINGTON, L7, Cv

- cjzdflle I s'mrns Parana rica.

MELVILLE o. Liiwis, or BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

BOILER-CLEANING- TOOL.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known'that 1,.MELVILLE O. LEWIS, a citizen of the United States, and residing at Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Boiler-Cleaning Tools, of which the following is a spamfication.

This invention relates to boiler cleaning tools and more particularly to a tool for scraping and cleaning the header or water leg of a water tube boiler.

In water tube boilers of the Heine type.

having headers or water legs, the outside walls or plates of which are provided with 'hand holes closed by hand hole plates, difliculty has been experienced "in cleaning out these headers or water legs. More especlally it has been difficult to clean the gasket spaces on the inside wallssurrounding the. hand holes, so that a good joint'could be formed for the gaskets and hand hole plates, and to clean the back wall surrounding the water tube ends.

' The object of this invention therefore 1s to construct a tool whereby this work can be performed with a minimum of labor and expense, and which tool can be driven by means of a suitable motor.

The invention will be described inconnection with the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the tool shown in expanded position, Fig. 2 is a front elevation, Fig. 3 is a view'similar to Fig. 1,

showing the tool contracted or folded, Fig.

4; is a detail of one of the cutter disks, Fig. 5 is a detail showing another form of this invention, and Fig. 6 is a vertical section of a header or water leg of a boiler of the Heine type showing the operation of the tool.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, 10 designates an axially extended support recessed to receive a pair of arms 11 which I are pivotally mounted in these recesses by means of pins 12 so as to swing toward and from each other. A pair of headed screws 13 are threaded into the free ends of the arms and form shafts or bearing studs for removably supporting the cutters or scrapers. The cutters or scrapers comprise a series of toothed disks 14:, shown in detail in Fig. 1, which are spaced on the shafts 13 by means of washers 15. In Fig. 5 the head 30 of the screw shaft is countersunk flush with Specification of Letters Patent.

7 Patented May 18, 1915.

Application filed October 4, 1911. Serial No. 652,871.

the cutter. The cutters per 8e are common in boiler tube cleaner constructions and further description thereof will therefore be unnecessary; The support is tapped to receive the threaded end 16 of a suitable driving shaft 17, which forms a driving member or connection for imparting a rotary movement to the support, andwhich shaft may be driven by a suitable motor '18 of the electric, water, air, or any other suitable type. The arms 11 are mounted to swing toward and from each otherto expanded and contracted positions shown in Figs. 1 and 3 respectively, and shoulders or, stops 19 and 20 are provided to limit the inward and outwardmovements respectively of these arms.

The operation of the tool will now be described: Referring to Fig. 6 which shows a tubes 29, and these hand holes are closed by r means of. hand hole plates, a gasket. being provided to form the joint. In order to form a goodjoint however the-inside wall of the front plate 26 surrounding the. hand hole must be clean.

y In order to insert the tool into the header, the tool is folded or contracted as shown in Fig. 3, and in View of the factthat this tool is designed so that the cutters will move when folded inside of the circle of the hand hole, the tool' can be inserted through the hand hole. If the motor is now started the arms will be thrown out by centrifugal force to expanded positions as shownin Fig. 6, the outward movement of the arms being limited by their engagement with the edge of the hand hole or by the stop shoulders 20. The front wall 26 surrounding the hand hole can now be scraped or cleaned by moving the tool back so that the cutters or scrapers will bear against the same as shown in full linesin Fig. 6. In order to clean or scrape the back wall 25 surrounding the tubes, the tool is moved to dotted position, Fig. 6, to move the cutters or scrapers against the wall. The tool can be readily removed through the hand hole by stopping the motor and by moving the arms inwardly to folded position shown in Fig. 3. The tool will adapt .itself automatically to hand holes of different sizes, since the arms are thrown out by centrifugal force and their outward positions are limited by their engagement with the hand hole edges. It will therefore be seen that the invention accomplishes its objects. With the tool described above the front and back Walls of a header or water leg may be cleaned quickly and thoroughly, and this tool may be quickly inserted and removed through the hand holes by merely folding the arms together. In this way the entire header may be cleaned in a very short time, thereby performing with a small amount of labor an operation which has heretofore required a good deal of time when done with ordinary hand scrapers. The work can not be performed manually as satisfactory as with this tool, in View of the fact that this tool performs its operation like a machine and therefore more accurately than can be done by hand.

The cutters or scrapers project laterally beyond the arms 11 and the support body, positioned inside of the hand hole, and beyond the inside edges of the hand hole when the device is in position therein, whereby the cutters or scrapers will engage the header wall surrounding the hand hole. The operative cutting edges of the cutters, when in operative cutting position, i. 6., when in engagement with the gasket space on the inside header walls, face rearwardly toward the driving end of the shaft 17 and toward the gasket space. Such a construction and arrangement of the parts is necessary in order that the tool may be able to perform the work for which it is designed, namely, that of scraping and cleaning the gasket space surrounding the hand hole on the inside header wall of a water tube boiler.

It is obvious that various changes may be made in the details of construction without departing from this invention, and it is therefore to be understood that this invention is not to be limited to the specific construction shown and described.

Having thus described the invention what is claimed is:

1. A tool for cleaning the header of a boiler having a hand hole, comprising an axially extended rotatable support adapted to be connected to driving means for imparting rotary movement thereto, arms mounted on said support to move toward and from each other, and cutters mounted on and projecting laterally from said arms and extending rearwardly, said support being insertible into the header through the hand hole, said cutters being adapted to engage and scrape the inside header wall, and said arms being adapted to engage the inside edge of the hand hole as said support is rotated.

2. A tool for cleaning the header of a boiler having a hand hole, comprising an axially extended rotatable support adapted to be connected to driving means for imparting rotary movement thereto, arms pivoted on said support and extending forwardly along the axis thereof, and cutters extending laterally from said arms, the operative cutting edges of said cutters ex tending rearwardly to engage and scrape the inside header Wall surrounding the hand hole as said support is rotated.

In testimony whereof I aflix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

MELVILLE O. LEWIS.

Witnesses FREDERICK B. BLAOKMAN, WARREN R. DANLEY.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. 0. 

